The civic election campaign is now officially underway, with Vision rolling out its radio ads, paid staffers like Mike Magee and Kevin Quinlan now out of the mayor’s office and into the campaign office, COPE opening up its office, fundraising dinners set and more.

My story here looks at part of the pitch going out to Vision supporters (if you don’t vote for us, the evil other side will wipe out everything we did) and the latest move from the Non-Partisan Association in its attempt to bring VV down somehow. Bike lanes — you knew that one was coming, but, as I note in the story, it’s a hard one for them. The NPA’s committed base mostly hates the bike lanes, but the general public isn’t as worked up about them. So the party has to be against them, but not too against them.

I didn’t have room for everything that’s happening as everyone rolls their cannons on to the field. (Sorry, I just read a book about the Battle of Waterloo, so my mind is filled with 19th-century war metaphors.)

COPE opened its offices today on 500-block East Broadway. I await fun, Monty Pythonesque videos from them, as per the 2008 campaign. Vision is not really operating a streetfront office, but is running its campaign out of the office over the dollar store at Broadway and Yukon. (Don’t hold back on the bad jokes, friends.) As mentioned, Magee and Quinlan are now on leave and working on the campaign, leaving the mayor all by himself up at city hall. Aaaieeeee.

The NPA (offices in concourse at Granville SkyTrain) has had to set back its fundraising dinner. Originally scheduled for last week, they’ve now moved it to early November, just a day away from Vision’s fundraising dinner. NPA president John Moonen said the party had sold a couple hundred tickets, but candidates were resisting selling more, saying it was competing with their own fundraisers at the same time. As well, it turned out there was another big charity dinner the same night, so the party moved it.

Unusual to see parties holding their fundraising dinners so close to the election and a bit risky. As one poster noted recently here, the winning party always tends to have the biggest campaign donations because people start giving more money as they get a sense of who’s going to win. So there’s a possibility that, as the momentum starts to accelerate for one party, the other one will be left in the dust. And that sense of who’s winning is likely to be more pronounced as the election date — and the dinners — get closer.

Vision Vancouver has posted its pitch from Gregor for money and support to keep the revolution going on YouTube. Your thoughts?